29. ~Caspian~

My eyes fluttered open and I winced immediately as my right arm ached like a bastard.

I might have overdone it during our sex marathon last night. The clincher had been when I'd held Skylar on my shoulders while she'd ridden my face and been leaning over to eat Caleb's ass, something he'd been craving from her for a while. Bastian had ended up needing to help me, wherein he'd then licked and bitten her breasts. That had culminated in a wonderful explosion all around. It had been our fourth go of it at that point, before we'd all then passed out together.

As I took in my surroundings, I found Skylar now nestled between me and Bastian, his arm thrown over her and resting on my thigh too. At some point in the night she'd gone to get her clothes from her room and she was now dressed in a pair of her blue lounge pants and a white tank, while Bastian was in his boxers.

It wasn't how we'd fallen asleep. Not just with the additional clothing, but also the fact that Caleb had been between me and Skylar, and now he wasn't.

I sat up with him nowhere to be found, and scanned his bedroom.

I'd made sure we'd come together in his room to ensure he was as comfortable as possible when he'd begun. I'd seen some uneasiness from him at first, and I'd been close to stopping things before they'd even gotten started, but he'd pleaded with me not to. He'd managed to not only sink into it all, but completely lose himself in us, demanding more and more, becoming the insatiable sexual thing he was known for being.

As I noticed the light on in the bathroom coming from the door that was slightly ajar, I carefully extricated myself from Skylar and Bastian, then climbed out of bed. I found my black dress pants on the floor and pulled them on, fixing my belt into place too.

I pushed open the bathroom door and started when I found Caleb in there sitting on the edge of the bathtub, hunched over with his face held in his hands.

I rushed to him and sank to my knees. "Lovely? Are you all right?"

He jolted and lifted his head. "Cas, hey," he said, sleepily, his eyes a little glazed.

I took his hands in mine. "What's wrong? Was last night too much?"

"No. I needed it like that. With all four of us. It felt… safe. Natural and free." He squeezed my hands. "I just had a nightmare, came in here to shake it off."

"A nightmare?"

"About him. Elijah."

I only just managed to swallow down my seething reaction at that twisted bastard being inside Caleb's head. Fortunately, my voice came out steadily and without an edge, as I said, "That's to be expected. It's okay, part of the process."

He nodded. "Will you brief Doctor Granger for me and make an appointment?"

"Of course. Whenever you like."

"Soon. Really soon. I thought I could wait until this war is over, but I don't want to. I can't have him in my head like this."

My gut twisted at his words, at him hurting.

"I understand. I'll set it all up ASAP, I promise."

He smiled and squeezed my hands back. "Will you come out with me while I have a smoke before we head back to bed?"

He didn't want to be alone, not while he was off-center like this. "Absolutely."

He pushed off the tub and rose to his feet with me. He reached into the pocket of his gray sweatpants and pulled out a smoke and we crept quietly through the bedroom and out onto the corridor.

I grunted as I went to wrap my arm around him, but had to pull up short at the ache worsening in my right arm.

"You're hurting?" he asked, reaching out and stroking it as we walked together.

"A little. I missed a couple of doses of painkillers."

"Because you like to make sure your head is clear before fucking."

"Exactly."

"And I saw you overdoing it last night."

"That too." I grinned. "Worth it, though."

"Cas," he sighed. "We'll grab that vial you keep locked in your office before we head out to the patio."

I nodded. "Yeah."

As we headed down the stairs, he shifted sides so I was able to wrap my left arm around him. I smiled out at him. "Love you."

"Love you too, Cas. Fucking always."

We made it to my office and I walked to one of the safes in the corner. It was where I'd taken to keeping alcohol and any narcotics in the house now after what had transpired with Bastian two years ago. Although he was doing so well now, I'd taken to keeping it that way.

I unlocked the safe then pulled out a vial that my doctor had given me after the farmhouse assault. I popped two, then placed it back inside and locked up.

As I turned back around to Caleb, I saw him shifting uneasily with a deeply pensive expression etched into his handsome features.

"Lovely?"

His gaze shot to mine. "I need to kill him, Cas."

I rounded my desk back to him. "I understand the urge, believe me, but—"

"I know you always intended to be the one to do it."

"It's not that. I just can't allow you to go it alone when it comes to that." I slid my hand to his cheek. "We'll do it together."

"Yeah?"

"I swear it."

"Thank you, Cas. Not just for that. For everything. For fighting so hard for me."

"That's what family does for each other."

He smiled up at me, then we headed out of my office.

"I'm still wrapping my head around the fact that Dante Mancini falls under that umbrella now."

"Believe me, I am too."

"You're handling it well."

"I didn't at first, but I'm starting to come to grips with it now."

"You can roll with anything, huh?"

"Not anything."

As we made our way through the kitchen toward the patio doors, he eyed me quizzically. "Really?"

"Not losing the three of you. I can't roll with that. Ever."

"You won't. You won't have to, Cas."

"It came too close for all three of you that night."

"I know. But we're all still standing here with you. It worked out and it will continue to." He fingered my pendant. "We'll overcome this shitshow like we've always overcome everything. And like Skylar is the queen of declaring now—together." He had me smiling as he pressed his pendant to mine. "That's how we'll do it."

I nodded, his words rolling over me.

We headed out onto the patio and he fired up a smoke.

I joined him against the railing, the two of us relaxing and looking out at the expansive grounds covered in the blanket of night.

A loud, booming thunder abruptly cut right through our reverie, ripping right through the area.

As we both jolted, a blindingly bright flash of light akin to a lightning strike lit up the area in a sudden burst, and had the both of us shielding our eyes.

"What the shit?" Caleb cried as he dropped his smoke and stubbed it out on the railing.

I bolted back into the kitchen, wincing at an irritating static and buzzing that filled the space while the lights flickered ominously.

And then it was gone, an eerie silence descending, the lights going out, security cameras, appliances shutting down, everything crashing at once.

Caleb came running in. "Fuck, was that—"

"An EMP? It would seem so." I took stock of everything, the way it had occurred. "A non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse, a NNEMP, by the looks of it."

"There are lights in the distance, so it's localized," he reported.

That only meant one thing. "We're under attack."

I rushed to the knife block and yanked out two, handing one to him and readying one myself.

We rushed out down the corridor, intending to head to the sub-level and access the armory down there.

We didn't get very far into that mission when yells out front in the courtyard reached us, followed by screams. A crash back the way we'd come had me swinging my head toward the kitchen to see three guys smashing their way into the place.

Before we could react to any of it, the entrance doors exploded, decimating them, the impact ripping Caleb and I off our feet.

I landed on my injured right arm, hissing at the pain, losing my grip on the knife in the process.

"Cas!" Caleb cried, pushing to his feet and choking from the smoke and debris.

He had his hands on me a moment later, trying to help me up.

He didn't get very far into the task, though, when a boot slammed into his gut and blew him back.

Another boot came at me and I rolled to my side, avoiding the hit, then snatched up the handle of the blade, as I used the momentum to get back to my feet.

The moment I made it, the owner of the boot lunged at me.

I snagged his arm, jerked him into me, and drove my knife into his chest, stabbing through his tactical gear. His eyes went wide behind his mask and he choked as I wrenched it out, then kicked him away. As he smacked into the lobby wall and collapsed, gasping out his last few breaths, I spun just in time as another came at me. I lobbed the blade and it cut through the air and drove into his throat. Satisfaction sung through me as blood spurted, letting me know I'd hit my target despite the blade not being weighted or designed for this sort of use.

Another ran at me and I let him hit, twisting to the side and bending so as the impact came, I was able to use his weight against him to haul him over my shoulder. I gritted my teeth as my arm screamed in protest. Another few minutes and the painkillers would kick in, but that could actually prove detrimental to my focus and stability through this fucking home invasion.

A home invasion?

They thought they could come at me in my home?

They'd never fucking survive it.

As the guy I'd just felled tried to push back to his feet, I was there, fisting my hand in his hair and using it to smash his face into the hard floor. Once. Twice. Until he was out.

I wrenched his Beretta from his holster, cocked it and readied my aim.

They hadn't drawn right away. It indicated that they needed us alive for something.

Likely, to take King. They needed me to do that in its entirety. It was a failsafe I'd set up.

Well, one of them.

I spun and fired off a shot at another assailant barreling through the mess of the entrance doors, the bullet driving through his skull and putting him out of the fight instantly.

Then I turned to see Caleb hauling a hostile down the corridor, then delivering a push kick to another in the next beat. Two others, he'd already downed.

But another three jumped on him.

He snarled as he was driven into the wall with jarring, disorientating force.

I saw his eyes spark with that familiar savagery, him trying to fight it off so he didn't lose himself to it. He'd been tested so much lately, it seriously concerned me that he might not be able to resist the pull of that blackness.

I fired off two more shots, dropping the opponents either side of him.

I couldn't take the one right in front of him without risking hurting Caleb in the process.

"Elijah wants his pet back," the guy was telling him as he tried to choke him out. "Gonna make great leverage against King, gonna give him one hell of a show this time."

I was there in the next second, pistol-whipping the guy. It had his grip weakening a little and I trapped him in a head lock and wrenched him back off Caleb.

"Motherfucker!" Caleb roared, slicing his knife across the guy's cheek, then driving it into his chest as I held him steady.

As he lurched, I released him and he collapsed among the rest of the fallen all over the lobby.

I stepped back and moved my gun back and forth, scanning the immediate area and listening intently, as I held my other hand behind me, keeping Caleb back in a protective stance.

More screams sounded form outside in the courtyard.

Then footsteps rounded the corridor and I looked to see my security team being led by Luke rushing down. Luke headed to me, while sending the two dozen men in various directions.

A crash rang out from upstairs and he rediverted some of them up there, just as I bolted forward.

"Report," I urged, wanting to head upstairs and secure Bastian and Skylar.

"It's been difficult to determine with all surveillance down along with communications, so I had to use word of mouth, hence the delay, and our response not being instantaneous. We've got three dozen of them spreading out throughout the property. Highly-trained mercenaries. We need to secure you and yours immediately."

"Secure the others, I'm not sitting this out."

As he went to protest, more crashing, the shattering of glass, and hefty thuds sounded, and in the next few seconds, a whole barrage of hostiles barreled out onto the corridor, coming from the living rooms, dining rooms, along the left.

Fuck.